On Mother's Day, the more fortunate among us celebrate the presence or memory of the women who nurtured us through good times and bad. Retailers offer many opportunities to buy flowers, jewelry, cards, candies or other tokens of love.
But one local mother’s love for children whose own mothers are absent is redefining the concept of maternal giving.
Last year, through her job at a Coweta County pharmacy, Vanessa Brown got to know a woman and her young foster child, Gabby. A Fayetteville native, Brown is married with three daughters. She had a natural affinity for Gabby, whom she calls “the sweetest, tiny 3-year-old I ever met.”
Once when Vanessa embraced the little girl and told her, “I could just hug you all day,” Gabby whispered in her ear, “You can.”
“It kind of broke my heart,” Vanessa says, having heard about the struggles that foster children go through when they are taken from their homes due to neglect or abuse.
One of the things that upset her the most was learning that children who must be put into foster care often relocate with little warning, and are given only a plastic garbage bag to put a few belongings in.
“They already feel like they’re unwanted,” Vanessa says. “They definitely don’t need a trash bag…I wanted them to have something that was theirs.”
Vanessa, who was herself adopted, asked the Coweta Division of Family and Children Services if she could provide nicer bags for the children’s things, along with a stuffed animal for comfort whether the recipient was a newborn or a teenager. DFCS welcomed the help, so Vanessa then approached the owner of Kendra’s boutique in Newnan, who offered to support the project by donating and personalizing the bags at cost: $15 each.
Vanessa began fundraising through Facebook, naming the endeavor Gabby’s Gift. Gabby herself received the first completed bag, but Vanessa’s initial goal was to provide bags for all 114 children in Coweta’s foster care system within a year. She didn’t have to wait that long; donations poured in and she paid for the bags within six days.
Since January she has expanded her outreach to give bags to all of the foster children in Fayette and Heard counties. She has set her sights on the 84 children in Troup County next, and eventually to the remaining eight counties in DFCS Region 4. That’s a tall order, and she has a ways to go to get those underwritten.
Vanessa is working toward getting Gabby’s Gift registered as a formal nonprofit charity. She and her friend Tracy Melton continue to provide bags as new children come into the system.
“It’s very emotional for me,” she says. “If I could take them all in, I would.” She now adds toiletries, books and school supplies to the bags.
“I want them to know there are people who care about them,” she says. “They already feel awkward enough; they just need love.”
And that’s the kind of gift those children will carry with them for the rest of their lives.
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